What Does Hiroshima Have To Do With U.S. Threats Against Iran?

By Larry Jones

Each year a number of NON-fundamentalist churches hold solemn memorials
in remembrance of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in
1945.  Most notably the United Methodist Church, the United Church of
Christ, and the Presbyterian Church, USA.  In some places the American
Friends Service Committee and their parent Organization the Quakers
also participate and often initiate community memorials. I’m willing to
bet that many of you reading this were not born in 1945 and hence may
not know much about what happened to Hiroshima on August 6 of that year
and to the city of Nagasaki three days later.  It was perhaps the
greatest horror perpetrated by the U.S. in a long list of endless
horrors.  Here’s how horrible it was.

On August 6, 1945, at 8.15 am, a uranium atom bomb named “little boy” was dropped by an American war plane called Enola Gay and exploded 19,000 feet above Hiroshima, Japan. The bombs were exploded at such high altitudes to maximize the killing.

People on the ground who survived said that the blinding flash was like a second sun. This first use of atomic energy in the history of the world created a giant fireball which created temperatures on the ground of 7,232 F.

Heat rays and radiation exploded in every direction.  The shockwaves literally vaporized tens of thousands of people and melted buildings and streetcars and leaving this 400 year old city a barren wasteland. A strong wind generated by the bomb destroyed most of the houses and buildings within a 1.5-mile radius. When the wind reached the mountains, it ricocheted and again hit the people in the city center.

By the end of the year 140,000 civilians were dead. Another 60,000 people later died from the bomb’s effects.  The atomic age was ushered in by a ghastly display of death brought on by America’s military.

Men, women, children, and animals who were not instantly turned into vapor were incinerated, their internal organs boiled and their bones charred into brittle charcoal, as seen in the picture above.

In Nagasaki on August 9, the deaths were at least 80,000.  In the years following hundreds of thousands more in both cities died from the effects of the radiation, usually from leukemia.  Large numbers of deformed babies also resulted in both cities; for example, newborns with two heads or three legs.

Harry S. Truman, U.S. president in 1945, ordered the bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  His initial order contained the caveat that the bombs should not be dropped on civilian areas. He obviously did not understand the true nature of atomic energy. However, he later justified this crime by saying it was necessary to end the war with Japan and thus saved many American lives. Obviously he thought American military lives were more valuable then Japanese civilian lives. Evidence now shows that Japan was probably ready to surrender weeks before.

The real motives of the U.S. were to show the Soviet Union that the U.S. was going to occupy Japan and go on to dominate the entire Pacific Basin. The USSR was then a socialist country, which it is no longer, and was an ally of the U.S. in World War 2.   However, long before the war with Japan ended, the U.S. had set out to prepare for a possible war with the Soviets and go on to attempt to dominate the world.  It is now seeking hegemony over the Middle East where it is willing to use nukes again if necessary.

DEATHS FROM U.S. DEPLETED URANIUM

All of the horror against Japan in 1945 was perpetrated by the nation that still carries on development of nuclear bombs while threatening to attack Iran if it doesn’t stop its nuclear enrichment program.

In 2003, while people around the world were memorializing the dead, and yes the dread, of August 6th and 9th of 1945, president Bush and select members of his regime were meeting at a Nebraska air force base to plan the development of more nuclear weapons, some of which, now called “Bunker Busters,” are on hand for possible use against Iran’s underground nuclear energy facilities.  The Pentagon often talks about “strategic” bombing using “smart bombs.”  Yeah, right!!  Like the “smart bombs” used to target Taliban centers in Afghanistan which last week ended up killing 45 civilians at a wedding party.  And this was just one of many such incidents in that country.

We now know that in the current Iraq war, weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) have caused huge numbers of newborn babies to have severe birth defects.  A recent report explains that: “A waste product from the enrichment of uranium, DU, contains nearly one-third the radioactive isotopes of uranium that occurs naturally. DU is generally used in armor-piercing ammunition; despite its classification as a weapon of mass destruction, and subsequent banning by the United Nations.”  (Daily Koz, 5/30/08)

According to Leuren Moret, an independent scientist and international expert on radiation and public health issues, “The genetic future of the Iraqi people, for the most part, is destroyed. The environment now is completely radioactive.” Since George H.W. Bush’s first Gulf War, birth defects and childhood cancer rates have increased seven fold in Iraq.  Morticians in Fallujah have reported that they bury several dead babies every day, most of them deformed.  The two U.S. wars in Iraq “have been nuclear wars because they have scattered nuclear material across the land, and people, particularly children, are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease essentially for eternity,” said anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott.

No nation has ever brought so much death and devastation upon innocent people of the world as the United States, and now they have Iran in their warring sites.  In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office ordered the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to draw up a plan to be used if there is another 9/11 type incident.  Included in the plan are air attacks on Iran using both conventional and nuclear weapons. At the time, intelligence analyst Philip Giraldi said of the plan in “The American Conservative” magazine: “As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing – that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack – but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.”

Obviously, Bush and company have been chomping at the bit to attack Iran for some time… Two weeks ago Undersecretary of State William J. Burns met in Geneva with representatives of Iran and six other nations, a meeting which has been billed in mainstream media as negations, despite Bush’s claim that he would never negotiate with Iran.  But as Ken Theisen in an excellent article on this site last week indicated, we should not be fooled by these alleged negotiations.  Basically, Iran was told that they had six weeks to stop expanding their nuclear enrichment program or face further sanctions.  Iran is not likely to comply.  So enter the sanctions and the stepping up of U.S. war plans.

According to Seymour Hersh in an important article in the April “New Yorker” magazine, “There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change.”  One sad truth is that the more the U.S. rattles its sabers, the more Iran thinks it needs to have nuclear weapons to defend themselves.  The U.S. has already planted clandestine operatives inside Iran.  They are not there gathering intelligence; their mission is military.

A former senior intelligence office spoke with Hersh and told him that the Pentagon’s position is that “clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran.  We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”

DOMINATION, NOT LIBERATION

What the U.S. has always wanted in its wars is domination, even as they shout liberation.  Check out what happened after WW2.  It was well put by “Revolution” newspaper in August, 2005. “The U.S. took over the Philippines again, and eventually became the main power in Singapore, South Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, and South Korea. The U.S. also tried to replace Japan as the power dominating China, but the people of China prevented that through the great revolution led by Mao Tsetung!

“The victorious U.S. imposed a series of brutal regimes, including the notorious Marcos government, that tortured the Filipino people over the following decades. Look at the history of Indonesia or South Korea.

“The U.S. victory in World War 2 meant more brutal domination, not liberation, for these countries. Generations sweated in the fields and sweatshops, women were crudely sold around U.S. bases, and brutal regimes were propped up by U.S. aid and guns. “And today, U.S. domination is still going on!”

Yes, it’s still going on – in Iraq  and Afghanistan and now very possibly Iran.  Whether that possibility comes about may very well depend on us.  Many supporters of World Can’t Wait are now In Berkeley engaged in very heavy struggle against military recruiters and their backward pro-war friends, as well as demanding that UC Berkeley fire John Yoo who wrote the memo giving George Bush and the Pentagon the “legal” go-ahead to commit illegal, immoral, depraved and unspeakable acts on human beings in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in secret prisons in a number of cooperating countries who do the torturing for the U.S.

Many of those WCW supporters and a host of others from a number of progressive groups will also be at the Denver gathering of the DNC beginning August 23 to denounce Obama’s rapid turn toward the right and demand that the Democrats do what they promised to do – end the war.  They will march, demonstrate, and agitate against the wars, the denial of women’s rights and the attacks on immigrants as well as U.S. plans to invade Iran.  In fact, against the entire dastardly program of the Bush regime no matter who becomes president.

The U.S. is seeking to have imperialist dominion over the Middle East, certainly for the oil located there, but also for the overall economic and military advantage over its capitalist competitors.  What the people of the world do in the face of an imminent expansion in Iran of that drive for domination can make an enormous difference.  Our actions in opposition to an attack on Iran are of critical importance right now.

We need to create the kind of political environment where the Bush and Co. will not have the political freedom to attack Iran and have all their lies exposed.  They lied their way into Iraq.  We must not let them lie their way into Iran, especially with nukes in their weapons collection.